Ask any right-minded loose-head prop forward whether they fancy playing on the tight-head side of the scrum and I'll bet that 95 per cent of them will tell you exactly where to go.

A few daft ones will offer to have a go and even fewer will actually manage to do a half decent job.

The casual observer might think that there isn't much difference between playing on the left and right hand sides of the scrum, but it is about as different as batting left handed when you are a natural right hander in cricket, only there is more pain involved in rugby.

Poor Alasdair Dickinson did as best he could for the 47 minutes that he occupied the tight-head berth for Scotland on Saturday in Paris, but he was totally outclassed and the Scottish scrum creaked from the first kick.

There have been some awesome and truly scary French loose-head props over the years – Gerard Cholley and Pascal Ondarts to name but two who fell into the scary category – so Fabien Barcella must have been licking his lips at the prospect of facing a lightweight loose head for 80 minutes.

Dickinson was doing the right thing, knowing that he was going to be under real pressure from a good technical scrummager.

He went as low as he could as the scrums engaged and then he dropped his right shoulder to limit what he exposed to the Frenchman. The problem was that he just wasn't strong enough to deal with the additional force that comes through on the tight-head side when you scrum against two people as opposed to just one, so it was inevitable that he was going to concede either ground, penalties or both.

It was almost an act of cruelty to select him there in the first place.

If it was cruel to expose Dickinson to the stuffing that Barcella gave him then it was folly not to have cover for the second row on the bench.

The last time Scotland fielded a scrum with a back five consisting entirely of back row forwards was in the late Eighties but back then they had the immovable object called The Bear (aka Iain Milne) at tight head that few in the world could better at scrum time.

When Jim Hamilton had to leave the field with a damaged shoulder it was to their eternal credit that the Scottish scrum did not disintegrate completely because by rights, it really should have.

It was indicative of the fight that the Scottish eight brought to this match which was lacking the previous weekend.

Leaving aside the quirks of selection that didn't help Scotland's cause, it was a far better performance in Paris and, in many respects, highlighted the poor selections of the previous weekend.

Alasdair Strokosch brought what everyone expected him to bring to the game – abrasiveness and aggression, while the Evans brothers brought pace and incision, but the rest of the team also stepped up a gear or three as the fans had demanded.

By contrast, France were a shadow of the team who had played such breathtaking rugby at times in Ireland. Gone was the pace, the change of direction of attack and the offloading that was present in Dublin.

Instead they looked like a team cruising with no urgency at all and it was the visitors who brought the inventiveness and excitement to the match.

Many would argue that the game turned on the try scored by Fulgence Ouedraogo just after half-time which came after a pass that was clearly forward. Although the referee was on his knees at the time the touch judge could have intervened and called the pass forward, but Wayne Barnes did not. It was not the first time that he has allowed a French forward pass in the build up to a match-winning try.

But to point to that one incident as being the moment that Scotland lost the match would be wrong and would smack of whingeing.

When the players and coaches look over the match video in detail they will notice that they made too many unforced errors – they dropped the ball, they lost possession in the tackle and they gave away soft penalties far too often and they paid the price.

Notwithstanding that, there was also much to be encouraged by. The pride and the passion was back in the Scottish play – perhaps because they would have known that if it hadn't been there then they really would have been in for a hiding, but there was more than just passion and energy in the Scottish play.

The Scottish backs looked far more incisive than they had been for many matches and despite the shortcomings in the scrum, the Scottish forwards looked a different class from a week ago.

The question is whether this performance will boost Scottish confidence.

The team need to start winning matches rather than being content with a better performance in a 'near miss'. Italy have to be put to the sword in a fortnight to feel that real progress is being made.